Follow Friday: The Old Foodie

You might have noticed that I have a weakness for old recipes — those underestimated windows into the past.

Back when I was a newspaper/foodie sort of person, one of my favorite jobs was reading over the recipe-query column — the more vintage the query, the better. I just loved readers who wanted to know how to make an icebox cake. If it were in my power, I’d have given them a year’s free subscription simply for using the word “icebox.”

The Old Foodie understands this love of vintage recipes, and does a wonderful job of blending fascinating historical material with a sharp eye for cultural context. For instance, The Foodie has most recently written a three-part series on “Emergency Food,” including a great post on suggestions given to British cooks in 1939 for how to stock and stretch their wartime larders.

Also, as a person of Irish descent I have to pay tribute to someone who includes a special section on “Historic Potato Recipes.”

If you have an old family recipe you’re trying to make sense of, or if you’re just interested in trying to imagine how your great-great-great-grandparents might have shopped for and cooked their food, this site is the perfect read.